Can the Shopsmith Bandsaw Be Quieted

[billmayo]

I had been using higher quality (ABEC3, 14,000 RPM) bearings for the double auto-track bearing and the same double bearings for the upper and lower blade guides on any bandsaw that I rebuilt in the past 20 years. About 3 years ago, I was able to purchase a much higher quality bearing (ABEC7, 34,000 RPM). These bearings are made by a partner company to SKF of SWEDEN in a factory that shares the same stringent high quality standards that make them the best bearings in the world. Unlike the herd of bearings made by Chinese toy companies, Predator bearings are manufactured by a factory that only makes high quality bearings and has a licensed independent 3rd party routinely audit and certify the quality assurance system. These bearing have a slight rounded should which allow the saw blade to track very well between the two bearing, Like a Carter Stablizer. I have sold over a hundred complete sets of these bearing upgrade packages without any negative response or feedback. I have a few hundred sets of these double bearing upgrade packages available so Contact me by Email (bill.mayo@verizon.net.) for more information. Thanks.

Bill Mayo

[dusty]

I am not making much progress toward quieting my band saws but I am certainly learning a lot; some of which may cause me to alter my alignment procedures. As previously stated, I was unable to get all of the bearing sets aligned to the blade.

I took the blade off and replaced it with a plumb bob. The plumb bob is attached on the left side of the wheels to the frame. The plumb bob strings goes up over the blade and down the other side. With the plumb bob located way back on the upper tire, the string passes the bearings right in front of them. I can readily see that bearing sets are centered on each of the two bearing sets. This remains true throughout the vertical adjustment range of the right hand backup bearing.

I don't believe I can improve on bearing alignment. I am confused by this so I am certain that all of you are too. Sorry about that.

[billmayo]

I recommend reviewing this reference in the Shopsmith Forum posts for adjusting the bandsaw blade tracking starting on 08-05-2011 by JPG40504:
http://www.shopsmith.net/forums/showthr ... djustments

I found this excellent instruction will take time to implement correctly. The pictures really help show what is needed. I recommend removing the bandsaw guide column bracket (70) and backing out the headless slot screws (68). Turn the special screw (73) inward and using the blade guide column post (71) to get it close to the front of the guide column bracket. I found I had to do this on recent bandsaws that I installed the double bearing update on in order to get the tracking of the upper guide bearings to center on the blade. I drill and tap a hole for the upper anti slop screw in the bandsaw guide column bracket (70) as this was an added improvement to recent model bandsaws. I use a nylon bolt for this screw.

[dusty]

That is in fact a very good reference document. Now all I have to do is get it into a format (complete with illustrations)that I can carry to the shop for hands on reference while I do the work.

[benush26]

Dusty,
I was able to select a page at a time, copy then paste into MS Word and print it out. I've done that for a few articles that were must have in my ever expanding Shopsmith binders.

Prints out about 3 or four sheets for each page but at least it is there.

I did try the print view (between FAQ and Members) but nothing happened that I am aware of. Maybe that feature does not yet work or maybe I have no clue how to get it to work ??

Be well,
Ben

[dusty]

I got it done too but it was not the most graceful transition.

I created a Word Page for each post and then did a copy/paste for the text on that page followed by a cut/paste for each image to the appropriate location on the page.

Should have waited for one of my daughters to stop by the house. I am sure they would have done it all much quicker and maybe better.

But I have something to carry to the shop which is what counts.

PS: I have now received all of the parts I ordered for this noise suppression task. I sure hope it works out. If it doesn't, I'll not need to ordered auto-track or backup bearings ever again. I have enough to last as long as I'll be backing saw dust.

[reible]

Can a quite bandsaw be made noisy?

Today I had a couple of things I wanted to get done, one simple task was to clean up the bottom guide block shaft. I found it very hard to turn the other day when I was changing blades so I wanted to fix that. The bottom one seems to have that problem, likely due to the saw dust dumping on it all the time.

While I was at that I found a slight interference issue but I will address that later.

My gut feelings have been that the issue relating to the shopsmith bandsaw has to do with something being misaligned. So what would happen if I purposely misaligned things? Could I make my saw become noisy?

I did my initial work on this saw bank in Aug 2011. I have not done any alignment since then and I don't think the saw needed it but in the name of science I went ahead and messed with things.

Nothing I could do would make a squeal sound, I did manage to get a growl sound but that was taking things to the extreme. Now of course I have no way of possibly finding out all the combinations of factors that could cause this sound but I did make a pretty good effort coming up with things to try.

Keep in mind I have a non standard set of bearing in place. Starting at the bearings near the tension adjuster, reposition the bearing left to right did nothing until it is way out of adjustment and then it wasn't a squeal just got more noisy. Keep in mind the bearings at this location only move left to right but they also can get a twist to them due to play in the mounting. I played with this too.

Next I went to the bearings just below the table. This set again only moves left or right but it too has some play and can twist. This set was a bit more sensitive to being misaligned due to not only it self being effect but also because it affects the top bearings. Messing with this was how I got the growl. When I got the misalignment over far enough the blade moved far enough to start tracking on the front surface of the top bearing (when centered on the two bearings it does not even touch the bearings without a load on it.)

The saw is a lot more forgiving then I expected when it come to most of the alignment and it wasn't until it was pretty far out that it became obvious.

The noise is still a mystery to me.

I've now got things aligned again and am finishing up on setting up the blade guides. I did have a couple of other observations that might be worth noting. They will be forthcoming in another post after I have the pictures to show.

Ed

[reible]

So first things first. I removed the ceramic blade guides and did another video. If you refer back to the wide blade video from the other day and then listen to this one you can compare the change caused by the blade guides.

https://youtu.be/w35qkOG1eZE

Ed

[reible]

The observations that I made today when fiddling with my bandsaw were as follows.

The nylon screw that I added to take some play out of the upper arm had substantial wear. I think I've heard that shopsmith uses a brass screw in this location and it might be worth while to try and locate one. For now I just readjusted it and I'll let it wear down but try to remember to adjust in more often.

Second I found I had a minor issue with the lower bearing where when the blade guide is fully retracted (smallest blade) then the one of the bearings was contacting the aluminum of the housing. Since I normally don't use really small blades on this saw so I never saw the problem but wanted to fix it anyway. Here is a picture with the guide blocks out for say a 1/2" wide blade.

IMG_6784sc.jpg (131.22 KiB) Viewed 2953 times

If the blade were very small then the adjustment would cause conflict as shown in this picture:

IMG_6785sc.jpg (131.58 KiB) Viewed 2953 times

In this picture you can see where they contacted:

IMG_6786sc.jpg (139.16 KiB) Viewed 2953 times

It was a simple fix. Used a file to remove a minor amount of material and tested to make sure the contact was gone. In my case the bearing needs to be positioned far to that side so that was about the only solution that made since. I hope you can see the shine of the fresh filing that was done, well that an the arrow should help.

IMG_6787scm.jpg (123.03 KiB) Viewed 2953 times

The whole purpose of this exercise started out to be a simple cleaning and waxing of the mounting post but then I got carried away. Here is a picture of the area I started out working on.

IMG_6788sc.jpg (144.94 KiB) Viewed 2953 times

Had I not worked on this and found this potential issue it may or may not have ever showed up, the problem only appears at the extreme of the range of movement.

While I didn't cut any wood today at least it felt like I was a woodworker....

Ed

[jsburger]

When I did the double bearing upgrade I used the .0625 shim as directed but had to a couple of much thinner shims to move the bearings out far enought that the blade centered between the two bearings. I had the file the lower guide bracket quite a bit to gain clearance for the two bearings.

Jack

I did not have to do anything but install the bearings however without the LDH thin spacers for the upper and lower backup bearings. With all this about spacers, no spacers, more shims, not far enough left, not far enough right, filing etc. it seems to me that SS changed the bearing mount brackets over the years for some unknown reason. Or that they have such a lose tolerance that they are all over the place. That is hard to believe.

Presumably everyone is using the same width bearings so none of this makes any sense.